CAIRO: Mohamed ElBaradei visited religious sites in Old Cairo Sunday, the third such visit since he launched his campaign for democratic change.
Accompanied by around 40 supporters from his National Coalition for Change movement and a media scrum, the ex International Atomic Energy Agency chief visited the Coptic Museum, the Hanging Church, the Jewish Synagogue and Amr Ibn El-Aas Mosque.
Since establishing the National Coalition for Change ElBaradei and his supporters have been active in gathering signatures for a petition of seven demands for political change including an end to the state of emergency and judicial oversight of elections.
The ex-diplomat refused to speak to journalists during his tour of historical Cairo on Sunday, telling Daily News Egypt that it was “a personal visit”. The visit has however been advertised on the elbaradei2011.com website as a “field visit” and ElBaradei supporters held up placards and chanted as they moved between religious sites.
Twenty year-old engineering student Ahmed Abdel-Rahman told Daily News Egypt why he supports ElBaradei.
“We want Egypt to be better, to be the best country in the world. ElBaradei, with his ideas and his coalition is the one who can realise this vision,” Abdel-Rahman said.
“People have been calling for an end to the emergency law, for freedom and democracy for some time, but ElBaradei is the only one who has taken a positive step and gone out to meet the people” Abdel-Rahman said, adding that his participation in the ElBaradei campaign is the first time he has taken part in political activism because he had “lost hope in Egypt”.
Ezz El-Hawary, a member of the Democratic Front political Party said that ElBaradei is a conduit for change, explaining that, “If anyone else had done this march they would have been attacked by the police. ElBaradei protects us and at the same time he’s an untainted figure; he hasn’t been corrupted.”
El-Hawary drew a comparison between the police response to Sunday’s march and the arrests of activists protesting against the extension of the state of emergency made in Alexandria last week, attributing this to the ex-diplomat’s “international standing”.
El-Hawary said that the low turnout of supporters during Sunday’s visit is attributable to the “culture of fear in Egypt society”.
“There are 130,000 supporters on [the ElBaradei Facebook group], but can they all go to demonstrations? Gradually I think they will. When they see that today there were no problems they’ll come tomorrow,” El-Hawary said.
